Introduction

Because that’s what it is, being alone: a habit.
If you collect the broken limbs

from the trees around your house, you approximate
community and its luminescent decay. I have kidnapped

carpenter ants and set a feast before them;
from these blood-daubed splinters

they build palaces behind the walls, and the hourglass
night is haunted with their revelry.

Early recordings destroyed themselves while singing;
imagine, even if no one was around,

trailers of wax encoding the floor that will not be
swept up, as though she has just left

and you can, piece by piece, reassemble
a life in absentia. Upon opening the door,

after a day at the mailbox, you can say, Yes,
she does not live here anymore.

Notice the footprints in the dust and the breeze
stepping in behind you. Introduce yourself.